Republican Tom Foley is touting the support of prominent Democratic fundraiser Carl Feen, who is well known among insiders for serving for four years as finance chairman of the state Democratic Party. In addition, he strongly supported the 2008 presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton and this year's governor campaign by Greenwich cable TV executive Ned Lamont.

But Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dannel Malloy is ripping Feen, saying that Foley should renounce his support.

The clash comes as the governor's race is a dead heat in several polls, including a poll released by the CT Capitol Report web site that has the race in a literal tie at 45 percent each. A recent Quinnipiac University poll had Malloy ahead by 5 percentage points with a margin of error of 3.7 percentage points. A Rasmussen poll had Malloy ahead by 3 points with a 4-point margin of error, and Foley says he has been ahead recently in his campaign's nightly tracking polls. A new Quinnipiac University poll is scheduled to be released Monday morning.

In an unexpected move, Feen announced his support for Foley.

"I'm a lifelong Democrat and have been very active in Connecticut Democratic politics throughout my career, but at this time in Connecticut's history I believe the right thing to do is endorse Tom Foley for governor," Feen said in a statement. "The challenges we face will not be solved by electing someone who is entrenched in the politics of the last 20 years. We need someone with a new perspective, an outsider's perspective. Someone like Tom, who is willing to take on the status quo to get spending under control. Tom will bring civility to a chaotic situation, and his bipartisan approach will bring Republicans and Democrats together to accomplish Connecticut's goals."

Foley, a longtime Republican fundraiser, said he understands the situation facing Feen.

"I know how difficult it is for someone like Carl to step forward and support my campaign after years of work supporting Democratic candidates,'' Foley said. "But like many Democrats, Carl sees that the issues facing Connecticut right now cry out for a different approach. We are not going to get our economy back on track by turning over control of the legislature and the governor to one political party. Further, Dannel Malloy still believes in the same policies that have created this mess, more taxing, borrowing, and spending. This is a job-killing combination that has to stop if Connecticut is to recover from the current economic downturn.''

On Saturday, Malloy criticized Feen for receiving commissions from the CIGNA insurance company regarding dental insurance for state employees.

The Malloy campaign said, "While negotiating the contract with Cigna, Comptroller Nancy Wyman warned Cigna that the contract must not include commissions to agents or brokers. Cigna agreed, but was later caught paying a commission to Feen. Wyman helped lead the charge to get Cigna to pay back more than $870,000 in commissions. Feen personally received nearly $500,000 of those funds.''

"The hypocrisy here is stunning," said Malloy. "Carl Feen is the consummate 'insider' - he raised money for candidates and bragged about his connections to them, while using state government to rip off taxpayers and pocket close to $500,000 in the process. Tom Foley is touting the endorsement of someone who took money out of the pockets of hard-working people in this state, and my running mate, Nancy Wyman, is actually the person who led the charge to force Cigna to put that money back into state coffers. If providing new leadership and a break from the status quo really is so important to Tom, then he must immediately renounce Carl Feen's endorsement, who certainly represents none of those qualities.''

Feen was a former agent for CIGNA for decades until retiring in 1997. The commissions were made over a 14-year period, dating back to then-Comptroller Edward Caldwell. The revelations about the commissions became publicly known in December 2004.

Feen has a long career as a fundraiser and contributor for a wide variety of Democratic candidates, including the past campaigns of Wyman and Richard Blumenthal.

Dan Malloy will be the winner because he has better values, is a proven and dedicated public servant, and he knows how to work within the complicated system of CT politics to get things done.

Tom Foley promises to be a shake-up artist, just as he has been a takeover artist and corporate raider. That will cause stalemates and fights with the Legislature, he will become totally ineffective as a result.

I don't think Malloy is ideal, but he's far better than Foley.

For me, Tom Foley STILL needs to explain his arrests, his divorce, and the Bibb Corporation layoffs.

Malloy is the wrong prescription for CT's ailing health. It would be the equivalent of putting the head fox in charge of the foxes guarding the henhouse in Hartford. CT is suffering from Democratic dominance of the legislature. What we need is Tom Foley as govenor with sufficient votes in the General Assembly to prevent, as we've had with Governor Rell, the Democrats' ability to override his vetoes. That's the only way CT is going to survive economically. If not, the death spiral will continue and the Democrats will preside over the ruins they've created.

Dan Malloy is too closely aligned and supportive of the states unions - and vice versa. CT has the highest per capita unfunded debt obligation of any state in the Union, and whoever becomes governor is going to have to tackle that head on. Success in this area means only one thing: drastic reduction in spending on all fronts. Unfortunately, with Dan's long and cozy relationship with union politics, that won't happen.

This state is crashing and burning financially thanks to ridiculous deals cut by politicians of both parties, but only the Republicans seem serious about stopping it. Yes, I want someone in charge who will (1) challenge the costs associated with state spending and enrich a few less people (2) cut when cutting is needed. That's Tom Foley.

Finally, Feen took nothing from state employees. It was all about contractual issues and Cigna ate it. Typical anti-business Dem-agoguery.

After bankrutping the Bibb, Foley went on to work for his old pal W in IRAQ. According to the award winning book Inside the Emerald City, Foley was so incompetent, that Bremer wanted to fire him but since Foley was an school friend of W's he was an Untouchable and they had to find a way to promote him out of Iraq. That's how he became Ambassador to Ireland.

Carl Feen did nothing wrong, he sold insurance. The company Cigna made the "mistake" of paying their salesperson. Had the made this salary, nobody would have cared, but because Cigna called it commision and the state contract said no commision, Cigna had to pay a fine. Carl is an upstanding man who has given to charities and other non profits his entire adult life. That he switched to the Republican candidate speaks to his morality as the Democratic party has gone socialist which is a failed system that has never worked. The Democratic party has missed the boat turning on what makes the American economy run, hard working people like Carl who work hard to earn money. The Democrats want to punish the hard working to fund the non contributors. Sorry, welfare recipients suck the life out of our world. Carl grew up very poor and succeeded without welfare. People get on their feet much faster when they are not fed the drug of govt hand outs. Congratulations Mr Feen on switching to the only Pro America party.

Some people just don't get it. Higher taxes mean fewer jobs. Fewer jobs leads to more people abandoning Connecticut. Too bad that the greedy union members don't understand that their jobs will be gone in a few years as well!!

The Democrat legislature gave Malloy $6 Million dollars of our tax money to run for Governor. Malloy is so arrogant that he seems to be complaining about a fraction of what he has taken from us. Enough is enough. Malloy feeding off of our taxes is over tomorrow.

Boy is Danny-Boy unnerved by this. I guess it's because he realizes that even the Democratic party isn't FULLY behind him...besides if this guy was such a low life as he is claiming, and I have no idea whether he is or isn't, but why was he working on his running mate's campaign and for that matter Liar Blumenthal? I guess he wasn't a scum when he was raising money for the Dems then was he?